Imperfect, But Present
by pro-prodigy
Summary: A collection of slash-themed ficlets set by various prompts. Features reliability, dates, cold weather, and others. Some are explicit, some not.
1. Reliance

**A/N:** Alright, this series is a collection of all the drabbles or ficlets i wrote in the months proceeding the release of the new movie. The lj comm **holmeswatson09** would post a new fic prompt, revolving on anything from the trailers, every so often and we'd all try to answer them. So these are all "movie inspired", but actually not really movie-canon.

Prompt 1: Response to the quote, "It does make a considerable differenceto me having someone I can thoroughly rely on."

* * *

There are many things to which I can rely on Watson to do.

I can rely on him to always remember to bring extra bullets and that our weapons have been properly cleaned and oiled. I can rely on Watson to—not exactly tidy because he is a bachelor as well, after all, but organize my things in a way that they are neither in my or anyone else's way while still being easily locatable. I can rely on him to remain calm in the face of danger and courageous in the face of adversity (as I discovered once when a heckler sneered at my casual touches of him when I had wished to merely deduce where he had been and when I quickly pulled my hand back, he merely held it tightly within his and folded his arm around mine as he led me away from the loathsome man and continued to do so even though the man had passed well out of sight). I can rely on him to berate me to eat because on occasion I do need it and I can rely on him to protest vehemently against my use of cocaine because I need that too.

And that is one more thing I have come to rely on of Watson, to be exactly what I _need_. He is a business partner when I require one, a fighter when my back needs covering. He is my light when all I can see is dark. He is my morale and confidence when we have been sitting in the rain for several hours with no sign of our quarry. He is my heart when my brain is too busy to bother, his soft words either directed to our emotionally wrought clients or to me on occasion when I forget, forget that…

I can thoroughly rely on Watson to love me, though I am a despicable creature at times and merely an entertaining faculty for brilliant deduction at best.

I can thoroughly rely on Watson to find something else in my capricious soul and act as a mirror to reflect the good he finds in there by proving its existence through the utter loyalty he devotes to me.

I can thoroughly rely on John H. Watson because I love him as well.


	2. Reliable

Prompt 1: Respond to the quote, "It does make a considerable differenceto me having someone I can thoroughly rely on."

This was my NC-17 version.

* * *

"God, Sherlock, _ahhhng_—" Watson let out a half-cry of utter bliss as Sherlock slid out from him once more.

Holmes smiled, only registered by the silken soft skin of Watson's back where the flushed column of his neck met his decidedly masculine shoulders. He canted his hips forward and let his cock slide back into the tight and unfettered heat of his companion, earning himself another breathless cry.

When Holmes' hand snaked towards Watson's prick, it was met with renewed hardness and fresh desire for his touch.

Holmes' smile widened. There were things to which Watson could be thoroughly relied upon.

His stamina was one of them.

"Fuck me, Sherlock and convince me to stay or I will return to courting Mary at once," Watson growled.

His next thrust hit his prostrate and Watson's fingers twisted in the coverlet underneath Holmes', anchoring him to the bed, though by this time he need not bother. Watson remained because of the seventy-three other things of which Watson could be thoroughly relied upon…

His insatiable sexual appetite was another.


	3. What now, Watson?

Prompt 2: Movie rewrite, Watson's reaction to finding Holmes naked and tied up to the bed at the hotel.

* * *

"Watson, I know that for several obvious reasons the position you have found me in could be considered both shocking and humorous and therefore quite reasonable for you to stare, but I would appreciate if, despite this, you could make the effort to stop doing so and help remedy my situation."

Watson ducked his head, mumbling a quick apology before moving forward from where he had stood immobile at the door.

"Where are the keys?"

"Beneath the pillow."

There were of course pillows behind Holmes' back, but Watson rather doubted that they would be there. Inexplicably, he blushed, causing Holmes to chuckle wryly.

"I had never much thought you a prude Watson."

"That isn't why," Watson bit back, much more heatedly than he had intended.

Holmes cocked his head to the side, his eyebrows sloping in a familiar gesture of deep consideration. Although in itself his expression was of innocent curiosity, his grey eyes pierced in a way that was a question all on its own.

Watson dropped his gaze, fidgeting slightly with one of the many puff ball tassels that hung along the edges of the cushion. He let out a shaky sigh. "I did not—shouldn't have expected you to remain celibate during the course of my marriage. It is unfair to you."

"Watson—"

"Though I did expect," Watson babbled onwards, "that you may have waited until I actually entered into the damn thing before you ended up tied to someone else's bed!"

"Watson—"

"You knew how I felt about it! Is this punishment? For what? For entering into an agreement that will save the both of us from gaol and worse!"

"Watson—"

"Or is it really her?" Watson whispered, his vice-like grip upon the bed sheets suddenly slackening. "Was Irene Adler the one to finally get past your defenses, navigate the labyrinth where you hide your heart?"

"Goddammit Watson, if you would just spare a second and ilisten to me/i!"

Blue eyes finally lifted to meet a strangely brightened grey.

"First of all, it would be a very poor way to repay you for your sacrifice without at least an equal sacrifice on my part, which incidentally is no sacrifice at all. You need not ever fear you must share me with any other because I am yours, John Watson. Second, I'm appalled you believe yourself unworthy of my faithfulness. We may never have such a binding contract as that of marriage, but I'm insulted that you would think I would not honor what little we had. You deserve much better than that. And lastly, I most definitely idid not/i have sex with Irene Adler."

"She's very beautiful Holmes and a singular woman. I would not blame you."

Holmes let out a breath of frustration. "Did you hear nothing of what I just said?"

"I did and I'm flattered and I know that…that I acted rather foolishly just a minute ago and that I was indeed hurt, but I would at least feel better knowing you had some sort of com-companionship while I could not give you any."

Holmes stared into Watson's face with an unreadable expression upon his face. "You haven't heard a word I said."

"I have and I—"

"John," Holmes interrupted him finally, eyes boring into his. "I was saying I love you."

Watson effectively hid his tears by closing his eyes as he sat on the edge of the bed and leaning in to kiss the bound man before him, his hands automatically rising to cradle the slightly stubbled jaw.

"I love you too," he breathed.

"Irene did wish to pass along a message, however," Holmes murmured, his tone revealing amusement along with the delicate curl of his lips against Watson's.

"What was it?"

"'My gift," Holmes rattled his shackles for emphasis, "to you'".

"I must remember to thank her, then," Watson said, hand darting underneath the ridiculously tasseled cushion.

"Now what are you doing, Watson?" Holmes asked, smile turning decidedly smug.

"Releasing you."

Watson gave a firm tug and suddenly it was his turn to look smug.


	4. Love Undefined

Prompt 3: Holmes and Watson on a date.

* * *

"You're free this evening?"

"Absolutely." The reply was delivered in a bored tone of voice that suggested he decided to not even try and pretend.

"The Royale?"

"My favorite." Sarcastic, scathing even.

"Wear a jacket."

"_You_ wear a jacket." Petulant and worse yet, rebellious.

He didn't want to come. Of course he doesn't.

Watson sighs, but continues on with his forceful bravado. "Of course I will wear a jacket. In fact, I plan to be wearing my finest, perhaps the one with the silk trim."

"Why are we bothering with this?" Holmes snaps, finally unable to maintain even his most paltry attempt at a charade. "I prefer how you look in tweed or nothing at all, for that matter. Why this need for fancy dress and social conformity? Why must you require me to appear different than what I am and pretend to be something I most certainly am not?"

_Because when you take out a lady to a nice restaurant in your finest vestments with a handsome smile and a courteous manner and make the effort to procure flowers and candles for the table, it meant you were willing to become something more to her_, Watson thinks desperately. _And when it's your best friend and flatmate you take out to dinner, what you are trying to say is that you want to be something more to him than someone he fucks more often than shows affection for and vice versa. It means love_.

Watson doesn't say this, no matter how much he wants to, but nor can he fully lie, so he says instead, "I would never ask you to be different, Holmes. I only wish for change once and a while," he smiles a little, putting aside his self-pity. "It is possible that this is all an elaborate plot to no longer receive burns from kissing you with that abominable stubble of yours."

"Ah, crafty Watson, very crafty."

Holmes goes along with it and when he emerges from his room after a whole hour of preparation he looks absolutely stunning. The cut of his waistcoat and tails is beyond flattering and his appearance is immaculate in a way that cannot be described. Not only does Holmes don his best clothes, but he affects an air of charming gentility that is not often seen. During dinner he is both attentive and charismatic in his own unique way, making witty comments and creating stimulating conversation and invoking an overall feeling of genuine contentment.

It was all an act of course. Holmes is a fabulous actor. He had done it for Watson though and that gave pause for some consideration.

Later that night among tangled sheets, sweaty bodies, and breathless moans and cries, Holmes did utter three little words to Watson that meant the world.

_"Fuck me again."_

It may not have been the ideal, but those words were real.

And they were his, Watson's.

Love was overrated anyways.


	5. Irene Adler says, Be a Man

Prompt 4: A reaction to Adler's line in the previews: "They've been flirting like this for hours."

* * *

_Sigh._

_Men._

Gentlemen these days couldn't be counted on to recognize what was in their hearts if they went through four years of medical school or could identify the blood that flowed through it after the substance had dried on a section of carpeting three days after it had been left there and with barely enough of the liquid to fill a thimble with.

And love? Well above their woefully lacking capabilities.

How do I know this? Because two such examples of sheer idiocy have demonstrated above fact repeatedly for the past several days I have spent in their company. It was pure agony to watch, let me assure you. A woman can only tolerate so much stupidity before it ceases to be mildly entertaining and becomes excessively irritating.

It's so blatant, so _obvious_ the emotions between them that I am frankly surprised no one has yet to accuse them of being the most unapologetic buggers of century. In comparison, they make Oscar Wilde seem discreet. I saw those sculptures they just happened to have displayed in their sitting room. If that is to be considered classic art, then I am to be considered homely, which I most certainly am not, so there.

There are no seductive glances shared between them or the titillating flick of the tongue as they casually lick their lips while the other happens to be watching. Nothing so exciting as that. It is the way Watson always starts his examinations with a gentle cupping of Holmes' cheek to peer intently into the detective's face when it is obvious he has been wounded elsewhere. It's the minute press of Holmes' lips that allows him just barely to refrain from saying aloud some of the things that pass through his mind when for any other he would have simply said it without apology and without a second thought to their effect, but for Watson there are moments I have observed when Holmes chose to censure himself. He doesn't need to. Watson would fully expect such behavior from him, but he does it all the same for Watson's sake.

It is visible in the close proximity the two are always seen to be in no matter where they are or what they are doing. Whether they are seated together in a cab, walking down the street, examining the same vital clue, or even waiting for someone else's arrival, they are turned just a fraction towards each other and they are _always_ close enough that had they truly been lovers their hands would be in easy reach to simply entwine together.

It was boring, domestic even. They might as well have been a married couple for all of their lovey-dovey gestures of tenderness.

But no, Watson was set to marry Miss Morstan and Holmes? Holmes decided to find comfort in my arms for a time.

It is not with conceit that I say that I was not a replacement for what Holmes could not fully have (and even if I was, I could hardly hold a grudge. Sex and love are not always exclusive). It is simply fact because when Holmes and I were together those grey eyes watched me like he sought to immortalize me in his mind more accurately than any photograph could possibly achieve. He picked up and reacted to my body's signals like he was made for nothing else. It was my name he whispered as he came.

But in the depths of the night when a nightmare plagued him and invisible foes clawed at his mind, though it was my arm that snaked about his shoulders to place a hand against his rapidly beating heart, John was the name he called for with desperation and confidence as if he wanted no one else to and knew only he would come.

I do not regret that night nor feel cheated. Why should I? I enjoyed myself thoroughly. As for Holmes, he deserved to be miserable if he insisted continuing on in such a moronic fashion.

I was sitting on a box situated on the boat we had used to fish Holmes from the Thames, having to bear witness once again to their passive-aggressive nonsense of Watson berating Holmes for some reckless stunt he did, Holmes being stubborn, Watson being hurt from said stubbornness, Holmes hiding his remorse and thereby revealing it, and their inevitable reconciliation that ended with an almost-embrace that consisted of their foreheads dipping towards each other and a more effected banter concerning what they had been previously arguing about.

The man who had been steering the boat chuckled and made an offhand comment about just how long the two friends must have known each other.

Finally at my wits end, I rolled my eyes and sighed dramatically. "You have no idea. They've been flirting like this for hours."

If I had been less annoyed, perhaps the way their heads both shot up to stare at me with twin blank expressions of utter incomprehension would have been amusing. _Would._

"We are not," Watson quickly corrected, his tone firm.

Holmes' lips curled upward in a self-deprecating smile, almost hidden by the angle of his profile as he stared back at the place where he had jumped. "No, indeed. Watson would never have wasted his time and effort as one such as me."

I could physically see the revelation light in Watson's eyes.

_Finally._

Perhaps it wasn't idiocy that kept them from each other after all. Maybe they had been aware of the love that dwelled in their hearts and what kept them apart all along was merely the _idea_ that the love had a chance at being returned at all.

In that case they were simply cowards, no better than stupidity, really, but understandable.

To think, all it took was one exasperated comment to catch them sneaking fervent kisses in dark alleyways and covert groping when wedged together in the hansom.

Suitably amused at last, I was just beginning to forgive them for their ignorance and foolishness when Holmes approached me in private to ask for my council.

"If I were to," the detective gestured vaguely with his hands, "with Watson, how exactly would I go about…" This was followed with another obscure hand gesture.

Watson's question he had posed to me later on very much took the cake.

"Will it hurt?"

_Sigh._

I stand by my previous assessment. Men. Are. Idiots.


	6. Takes some bad for satisfaction

Prompt 5: Winter weather

* * *

"This is the absolute worst place you have ever brought me to, including that haunted traveling circus."

"Are you ever going to let that go?"

"Never," Watson bit out savagely, although it was slightly muffled by the blanket he had wrapped about himself so it came out more as a low growl. "And I shan't let this one go either."

The drafty inn window let in another cold gust of air, causing Watson's shivering to increase tenfold. The room didn't have a grate and his clothes had been soaked after falling into an unseen semi-frozen creek bed during the nighttime chase of a silver thief. His current clothing consisted of one not nearly large enough or thick enough fleece blanket and a pair of under shorts, which had been leant to him by Holmes. The deal had been that Watson was allowed the one blanket they had found in the abandoned inn since Holmes retained all the dry clothing. The only reason why Watson was able to demand that particular piece of clothing was because they were his to start with.

As if on cue, Holmes reached down to scratch himself in the most unrefined manner.

"Oh! Must you do that?!" Watson demanded irately.

Normally it wouldn't have bothered him. They were both men, after all, but he was cold, tired, and sitting on a possibly larvae infested mattress in an abandoned inn in the middle of nowhere with no matches and it was Holmes' fault and he was determined to make the detective feel the full extent of his misery.

"What do you expect? There is a legitimate reason why men do not prefer to wear wool trousers over their bear genitals. I don't understand why you insisted on wearing it anyways. I very much doubt they are providing you with any additional warmth."

"They're mine. That's why, Holmes. Dammit!" Watson cursed as the shivers continued to wrack his lean frame. It was causing his muscles to cramp something awful and his thigh and shoulder were aching fiercely.

Holmes was next to him in an instant. "It's your wounds, isn't it? Let me warm you, Watson," Holmes whispered suggestively, moving ever closer.

"No." Watson held him off with one of his arms, causing the blanket to fall open and making him shiver all the harder, although it might not have been wholly from the cold.

"It's been too long, Watson. Do you remember how good it used to be?" Holmes continued to whisper, lips maddeningly close to the bare skin of his neck and shoulder.

"Yes," Watson answered, unable to lie while Holmes nuzzled his neck and cheek, a shudder adding to his already violent trembling.

"Then why would you want to stop?"

For a moment, Watson couldn't remember, but a deeper pain welled up from his chest and he turned deliberately away from Holmes' attentions. "I'm not your personal rent boy, Holmes, there only when you want it and discarded when you don't."

"I cherish you," Holmes breathed lightly along the shell of his ear.

"Then why," Watson ignored the tell tale burning in his eyes, "did I wake up alone last time?"

"Because you smelt like our client, our _female_ client, and I was angry at you. Do you want me to prove it? Do you want me to prove to you that I cherish you?"

Watson held out for all of seven and a half minutes of Holmes' butterfly light touches along the fabric of the blanket and his breath coming out in warm gusts in his hair. Seven minutes and thirty-two seconds later, Watson turned and pressed his lips hard against Holmes', demanding entry into the warm cavern of his sometime-lover's mouth.

"Then prove it," he rasped, allowing the blanket to fall from his shoulders.

Its warmth was soon replaced by Holmes' own as he lay atop Watson's bareness. Holmes' lips fastened immediately on Watson's damaged shoulder, licking and sucking over the raised and puckered crisscrosses of scar tissue. His hand simultaneously went to pull down Watson's under shorts, which Watson obligingly wriggled out of, immediately rewarded by Holmes taking his semi-erect cock firmly by the hand. He cradled him with knowing fingers, pumping him slowly, but insistently, his thumb brushing at the tip with every upstroke and his fingers darting down to message his sack with every downward one. Holmes ran the length of his tongue over the expanse of his wounded shoulder, following the contours of the ruined muscle, his hot breath warming the thin layer of saliva he left behind. His tongue swirled expertly over the epicenter of the old injury, while he simultaneously swirled the pad of his thumb over Watson's left nipple.

Watson arched upward from the barrage of stimulation. True to form, he felt nothing of the cold that had plagued him previously. He now only felt the mounting need and warmth that suffused throughout his entire body as his desire soared.

Holmes slunk down the length of his naked chest and abdomen, leaving a wet trail in his wake, only diverting to deliver a few nips here and there. Teeth scraped agonizingly slow over his hardened nipple and the bottom of his left peck received a love bite, his bellybutton plundered with indecent and suggestive thrusts of the fastidious detective's hot tongue.

Just when his cock began to weep with scorching urgency, Holmes removed his hand and moved it instead to the inside of his thigh, his hands messaging either side as he paid the same homage to his pockmarked thigh as his splintered shoulder. Watson's hands fisted in the nearly forgotten blanket as Holmes' fingers crawled upward along his inner thigh and almost, just barely near the cleft of his buttocks. His tongue followed his fingers and Watson jerked and shuddered as that tortuously talented tongue made a steady trail up his perineum.

"H-Holmes, you—ahhh!" Watson cried out as Holmes' mouth descended around his unbearably stiff cock and began bobbing with quick efficiency.

Watson could feel the tip of his prick brushing at the back of Holmes' throat, but the man neither gagged nor slowed. Watson moaned with abandon, for the first time that night, blessing the fact he was stuck in an abandoned inn in the middle of nowhere with the man he loved more than the Earth and sky put together. He didn't trust himself to touch Holmes, lest he rip out a handful of that coal black hair or bruise those perfectly masculine shoulders.

He shouted Holmes' Christian name when he came, sunk to the hilt in Holmes' mouth, unable to stop himself from thrusting slightly as he felt Holmes' throat swallowing around his shaft. Watson pulled Holmes up as soon as he was able, kissing him hard and tasting himself in the other man's mouth.

"Here, let me," he whispered breathlessly, preparing to lower himself down, but Holmes stopped him by cupping his neck firmly in his grasp.

"No, this was for you." Holmes pierced him with an imperious stare. "Only for you."

"Holmes, you're—" It was obvious Holmes' own need was straining in the confines of his scratchy wool trousers.

"You said for me to prove that I cherished you and I intend to carry it out until you don't have a single shred of doubt."

Watson kissed him, gently, and buried his face in Holmes' neck, feeling the man's steady heartbeat along the bridge of his nose. "I believe you. I'm sorry."

Holmes moved as if to leave, but Watson held him tighter in his embrace.

"Don't leave. Stay with me," Watson murmured, his soft words belied by his arms that became like iron bands to keep Holmes pressed against him.

Holmes sighed and settled down beside him. "You only had to ask, Watson. You only ever had to ask. I cannot deduce everything, you know."

"So your ego does have its limits," Watson teased.

"When it comes to love, it does."

Watson felt another suspicious burning behind his eyes and he hurriedly busied himself on wrangling the twisted blanket from beneath him and over the both of them. He burrowed into Holmes as close as he could manage and bestowed another kiss on the beloved man's lips. "Then I have something to prove to you as well."

Holmes yawned inelegantly, resting his cheek atop Watson's head. "I only meant to retrieve your under shorts. Would you still like me to get them?"

Watson shook his head and closed his eyes. "No, if you are going to fuck me in the morning, it will only get in the way."

"That's my little renter. How much?"

"A decent hotel room next time."

"Are you ever going to let this go?"

Watson's arms tightened once more around his always lover. "Never."


End file.
